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Sunday, April 20, 2014

Chocolate Chai Chess Pie

Our goal...

After an almost two year hiatus, the crazy pie train finally
rides again! This time we’ve gone all the way to the east coast to break in our
shiny new kitchen. And in honor of this momentous occasion, Terry has finally
let me be a guest poster!

In my ongoing attempt to convince Terry that Charleston is
the best city in the world and he should move here immediately, I knew that we
should go with a Southern staple—chess pie. Our brand new house obviously
deserved its own brand new pie book, so I bought Allison Kave’s First Prize Pies. Rather than a basic
buttermilk or lemon chess pie, we decided to go with her chai chess pie (in
honor of my brownness). We also went with the chocolate pie crust to complement
the spiced filling.

On
a clean flat surface (such as your new granite island!) or a shallow bowl, stir
together flour, cocoa, sugar, and salt

Add
butter (and lard if using) to the dry ingredients and cut the fat into the
flour until the mixture has been reduced to pea-sized chunks

Spread
the mixture out to expose as much surface area as possible, and drizzle half of
the milk mixture over the flour

Lightly
toss the flour over the liquid, and then spread mixture out and repeat with
remaining milk

Cover
dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least 1 hour

Not the prettiest crust, but it does the job

Your goal is to have dough that will just hold together when
pressed against the side of a bowl. We needed to add a few more splashes of
milk to get the correct consistency. We’re also terrible at reading
directions, and were confused when we had enough dough for two pies…

Roll
out the dough into a circle about 11cm in diameter and transfer it to a 9-in
pie pan (or smush the dough into the pan with your fingers like an adult)

Blind
bake the crust for 20 min until partially baked then let cool. Turn the oven
down to 350°

Whisk
the eggs and sugar together until light and fluffy

Whisk
in the tea mixture, flour, butter, and salt

Pour
the filling into the crust and baked 25-30 min until the filling has just set
and is still slightly jiggly in the center

Cool
completely before serving.

Action shot

In our attempts to figure out our new oven’s quirks, we
accidentally overbaked the pie and passed the perfect gooey stage. Luckily the
center still was the perfect consistency. Even so, the filling was a great
spicy improvement on your standard chess pie, and was even better when it was
cold. Next time I think I’d switch out the instant ice tea powder for ground
black tea leaves to get a stronger tea flavor (though the iced tea was a nice
tribute to the southern theme). We also topped our slices with freshly whipped
cream, which I highly recommend.

Final product! Somehow it doesn't look like the picture in the book...

This actually ended up being one of our less successful
pies. Turns out when you stop baking pies for two years, you forget about the
simple things, like covering the outer crust and that pies continue to cook
after you take them out of the oven. Luckily our new cookbook has a pie for
each week of the year, so we will have plenty of practice ahead! That being
said, you can never go too wrong with butter and sugar. Overall this was the
perfect way to break in our new house (along with the obligatory champagne and
dance party).

Rather than trying to cut slices with a plastic knife, we ate out of the pie plate like the grownups we are